The Promise

Sineas had had difficulty sleeping after what he had gone through the previous day. It had truly been a day to remember…or a day to forget.

He looked out the window. Grey clouds were forming in the sky. Probably going to rain, he thought. He languidly pulled his body from the bed. Even though his eyelids were still very heavy, he was able to find his way to the bathroom, take a long and refreshing shower, put on a black t-shirt, a pair of jeans and his white Nikes and he headed downstairs.

Aunt Janice was fully dressed in her waitress uniform. She was sitting in front of the TV.

Sineas gave her a drive-by good morning making his way to the kitchen.

'Sin, my boy,' she called him before he left the room.

Sineas turned around. Her elbows were placed on her knees and her hands were clasped tightly in front of her mouth. She was maintaining the stance an employer makes when pondering over whether to hire the applicant or dismiss him entirely.

'Is something wrong, Aunt Janice?' he asked her before cautiously taking a seat right beside her. Her eyes were glistening. It looked like she could let loose a stream of tears at any moment. Sineas was fearful now. 'Aunt Janice, what's wrong?' he asked again.

'It's…' she lowered her head a little. 'It's your mother, Sin.'

His eyes immediately widened. He was curious. Nervous. What about his mother? 'What about her?' he asked his aunt.

She gave a long and deep sigh. 'She's gone, Sin. Your mother is gone.'

'Sh…' his eyes shimmered, '…What?' He gulped and looked aside. He turned back to her. 'What are you talking about, Aunt Janice? How..?...What?'

'Doctor Jacob went to her room this morning for her check-up. Room eleven…but…' she dropped her head lower.

Sineas' head was spinning out of order. He felt like he was drowning. He wanted to. His mother? His own mother?! How was he supposed to survive? How did the world expect him to survive without those eyes? That smile? How much more was the world willing to take from him before it was satisfied? He turned back to his aunt. He said, 'Did…did it at least happen peacefully?' he asked her.

She finally turned her gaze towards him, slowly. She looked curious. 'What do you mean, Sineas?'

'What I mean, Aunt Janice is; was it at least a peaceful death?'

She dug her face into her hands and shook her head slowly. 'Oh, Sin,' she looked back at him, 'I don't mean gone as in dead. I mean she's literally gone- missing! She escaped from the asylum, probably last night.'

Sineas was stumped. 'She broke out?!'

'Yes! It's almost as if she'd been planning it for years, at least that's what Doctor Jacob thinks. I still can't get around how she pulled it off. That place is heavily guarded, especially in the evenings. The security in that place is as tight as a hangman's noose!'

Sineas rubbed his eyes. 'But, Aunt Janice. The fact that she's gone…she's free- isn't that a good thing?' He smiled broadly.

Aunt Janice's eyes flared up. She grabbed him forcefully by his shoulders. 'Good thing?! Good thing?!' she yelled directly into his face. 'Sin, your mother is mentally unstable! She could hurt someone or even herself. God only knows what I'd do if anything bad happened to my sister.'

He could now see the tears more clearly. One of them slipped down her cheek. He said, 'Don't worry, Aunt Janice. She'll be fine.'

She began shaking her head before he even finished his statement. 'Sin! Sin! Sin! Listen to me! Your mother is in a very fragile state and what I'm certainly sure of is that she's going to come looking for you. So promise me, Sin. Promise me that you'll tell me if she ever contacts you.'

His entire body was shaking now. His mouth quivered uneasily. 'Aunt Janice…'

She shook him again. 'Promise me!'

He nodded immediately, 'Yes, yes...of course I will.'

She looked deeper into his eyes. They moved back and forth in his. She smiled. 'Good, my boy.' She finally released his shoulders. She wiped her face clean of the tears. 'Now, run off to school or you'll be late.'

Physics class was chaos. Pure and utter chaos. All Mr. Sawyer could do was to try to at least calm half the class down. It was the greatest uproar Sineas had ever seen. The reason behind the uproar? Justin Foyer. One of the members of Justin's gang, a gigantic red-haired boy by the name of Trevor had spurned the class into a frenzy after asking what the school intended to do to keep them safe following the deaths of Justin and shortly after, Miss Bale.

'We as the students of Malrich demand to know, sir,' Trevor argued standing audaciously beside his desk wearing the popular sports jacket. He added, 'Are we safe, or are we in peril? Should we look forward, or keep looking over our shoulders for the rest of our high school year, looking out for a psycho wielding a battle axe?'

The class roared in support of Trevor's question.

Sineas, as usual, was sitting quietly in the back, watching the proceedings of this rather captivating debate. He did not feel like learning anyway. He had too much going on in his head. His mother's escape from Breechwood Asylum was one of them. The escape was giving him mixed feelings: happiness in the sense that she was now free of that wretched place that had kept her as prisoner for over a decade. Aunt Janice's warning had made him nervous however. It had been so intense that it almost felt like a threat. He tried his best to push away these thoughts but they kept fighting, pushing back.